Thursday, March 26, 2009

(WASHINGTON) — NASA's online contest to name a new room at the international space station went awry. Comedian Stephen Colbert won.

The name "Colbert" beat out NASA's four suggested options in the space agency's effort to have the public help name the addition. The new room will be launched later this year.

NASA's mistake was allowing write-ins. Colbert urged viewers of his Comedy Central show, "The Colbert Report" to write in his name. And they complied, with 230,539 votes. That clobbered Serenity, one of the NASA choices, by more than 40,000 votes. Nearly 1.2 million votes were cast by the time the contest ended Friday.

NASA reserves the right to choose an appropriate name. Agency spokesman John Yembrick said NASA will decide in April, but will give top vote-getters "the most consideration."

I, for one, am hopeful that NASA sees the genuine funniness of the situation, and names the new room as the public has requested. Wonderful.

2 comments:

I have friends who named their dog Stephen Colbert (and its a girl) they recently got another dog and I BEGGED them to name it Bill O'Reilly, but being VERY proud Obama people they declined and named him Jon Stewart.

About Me

Married 30-something living in Sherwood Park with the husband of my dreams, our beautiful daughter and two ridiculous cats. University administrator, PK, cross-stitcher, choral singer, baseball fanatic... Life is varied and wonderful.

Middle Brother: Also my elder, but by not quite as much as EB. He works for our provincial government, doing neat things with disaster preparedness planning. He beat up the boys who were mean to me in elementary school.

Paternal Unit: My dad, who is a professional storyteller in another province far away.